Friday Khutbahs (Sermons) · 28. July 2023
Every jumu‘a, within the span of a single week, so many issues unfold that should be of critical importance to the Muslim Ummah and to the very idea of Islam as a faith and a set of normative values that shape and anchor our identity. The challenge for the intelligent, reflecting, and thinking Muslim is what to take away from these issues. What do the affairs of the world, as they directly pertain to Muslims and Islam, teach the reflective Muslim about God's purpose? What is God saying to...
Friday Khutbahs (Sermons) · 03. March 2023
Once we take seriously the duty of testifying in the path of God for the sake of justice, or testifying in the path of justice for the sake of God (Q 4:135; 5:8); once we understand that the two are interchangeable and indistinguishable; once we understand that God is not about communal activities that affirm a sense of identity; God is not about Muslim camps in which people come together to indulge in gossip and chitter-chatter, endlessly talking about mindless topics; once we understand that...
Friday Khutbahs (Sermons) · 13. January 2023
We live in a world in which advances in technology and communications have enabled human beings to deliver narratives. Human beings are now able to transmit narratives without any of the screening or vetting processes that are typically used in societies, especially as societies develop and become settled and urbanized. Throughout history, societies have developed mechanisms by which narratives are vetted so that certain things are scrutinized. For example, you may try to scrutinize that the...
Friday Khutbahs (Sermons) · 09. December 2022
Five years ago, we started The Usuli Institute based on the idea of creating an institutional format in which we would go back to reclaim the foundations of our faith and the Islamic message. At the time that The Usuli Institute was founded, I did not know that I would be sharing my journey with the Qur'an, but God has arranged for this to become the crowning activity of The Usuli Institute. God has arranged for me to share my lifelong journey with God's Divine book and Divine revelation. Those...
Friday Khutbahs (Sermons) · 30. September 2022
Embedded within my conscience, and what should be embedded in the conscience of every Muslim who takes his or her religion seriously, is God's refrain in Surah Al Imran: “...and that there might grow out of you a community [of people] who invite unto all that is good, and enjoin the doing of what is right and forbid the doing of what is wrong: and it is they, they who shall attain to a happy state!” (Q 3:104). This is further underscored in the same surah: “You are indeed the best...
Friday Khutbahs (Sermons) · 12. August 2022
In essence, the sum total of our journey on this earth, of this miraculous event that gives us consciousness - and we enjoy this consciousness for a period of time until it slips away - the truth of the matter is, with all the speculation and all the attempts at insight and perception, what awaits us after this consciousness slips away is only truly known to God and God alone. After this consciousness slips away, is it a state of sleep until resurrection? Do we acquire some level of...
Friday Khutbahs (Sermons) · 05. August 2022
A reflective, Qur’anic human being is a human being that handles life on earth as God repeatedly reminds us to. When God asks us to engage in ta’aqqul (to reason), tafakkur (to ponder/reflect), and tadhakkur (to remember, literally: to do dhikr), it is, in essence, a constant reminder of the reflective life. That you are not simply like so much that is led by instinct and engineered by habit; you are not simply a phenomenon, something that manifests on this earth to enjoy a momentary burst...
Friday Khutbahs (Sermons) · 15. July 2022
This jumu’a, there are a considerable number of events and issues that are transpiring, all of direct concern for Muslims that we could speak about. But as with all affairs, we reflect upon the challenges that the world presents us with in light of the foundations that the divine revelation has left us with. There is, or at least there should be, a constant conversation in the mind of a believing, faithful Muslim between the lived experiences in the world and the wisdom imparted through...
Friday Khutbahs (Sermons) · 20. May 2022
There is an image that is hard to ignore, that really puts Muslims to the ultimate test. The image is quite simply this: An excavator, a big monstrous truck beginning to tear down the Al-Aqsa Mosque. It is accompanied with a caption stating the destruction of the Al-Aqsa Mosque will begin on May 29th, inviting all Israelis to come to Al-Aqsa Mosque so that the tearing down, the dismantling, and the destroying of Al-Aqsa Mosque can begin. This call for the destruction of Al-Aqsa Mosque to begin...
Friday Khutbahs (Sermons) · 13. May 2022
We have truisms, things that we say as Muslims that we have become so accustomed to. The problem with developing habits of familiarity and becoming accustomed to things is that human beings often become complacent in their habits. With complacency, there is also often the loss of meaning. We as Muslims have the Qur'an in our midst. By conviction, the Qur'an is God's revelation. It is God's testament to us. What God affirmatively chose to leave to us as a will and trust. We do not know God's...